How Can Injection Risks Be Reduced?

How Can Injection Risks Be Reduced?

Getting drug injectors into treatment and off drugs is the best answer. Unfortunately, not all drug injectors are ready to quit. Even those who are highly motivated may find few drug treatment services available. Drug treatment centers frequently have long waiting lists and fewer than 15 percent of IVDUs are in treatment at any given time.

For those who cannot or will not stop injecting drugs, the best way to avoid spreading HIV is to use a sterile needle for each injection, or at the very least not to share needles. Users who share should disinfect their injection equipment thoroughly with bleach, although this is not as safe as always using a sterile needle and syringe.

How To Disinfect Needles and Syringes

Does Needle Exchange Encourage Drug Use?

There is no evidence that needle exchange programs increase the amount of drug use by needle exchange clients in the community in general. A study of a San Francisco needle exchange program that opened in 1988 found that from 1987 to 1992, frequency of injecting drugs among street-recruited IVDUs declined from 1.9 to 0.7 injections per day. The mean age of IVDUs increased from 36 to 42 years, and the percentage of new initiates into injection drug use dropped from three percent to one percent. Drug abuse and the recruitment of new or younger users did not increase in the presence of the exchange; in fact, the exchange may have helped decrease the amount of drug abuse in the area.

Does Needle Exchange Reduce the Spread of HIV?

Simply put, the answer is yes, almost certainly. Needle exchange programs are based on a sound public health principle; the principle of eliminating the item that helps transmit infection from one person to another, just as, for example, reducing the number of mosquitoes helps prevent malaria.

Needle exchange programs have also achieved reductions in the rate of hepatitis infection, which can also be spread through sharing needles. In Tacoma, WA, clients of a needle exchange program were up to eight times less likely to contract Hepatitis B or C than non-client IVDUs.

Finally, needle exchange programs can act as a bridge to:

• drug treatment
• HIV testing and counseling
• primary medical care
• tuberculosis and sexually transmitted disease screening